Friday, January 6, 2012
Clear Creek Caucus
Well, it was a fun evening. John and I were one of the early arrivals (imagine that) at the Clear Creek/Powershiek township caucus at the Mingo Community Center in beautiful downtown Mingo, Iowa. We walked in to the smell of coffee and freshed baked cookies (very homey). We signed in, got our name tags and our ballots (after being sternly admonished that if we lost our ballots we would not get another one), and found seats by Ray and Karol Armentrout. All told, 114 people showed up. We started at 7, voted by 7:40, had the results by 7:55, and were out the door by 8:00 when the other caucus business began. I didn't whine about leaving early because I was just glad your dad came. Besides, I wanted to get home to watch Fox News (which I did until 2:00 a.m. and the last ballots from the 2 last precincts were counted). All of the candidates' speakers were impromptu, okay-I'll-get-up-and-say-something people but Paul's (regular guy with a prepared speech) and Santorum's (a ringer and obviously politically savvy). Our group went for Santorum with 33 votes, Paul with 20, Perry 17, Romney 15, Gingrich 11, and Bachmann 8. I was one of the Gingrich votes, and I'm still hoping for a miracle for him. The guy who spoke for Romney was a farmer type in a red plaid shirt who quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson (he was one of the impromptu people). I about fell off my chair. And that is why the Hawkeye cauci should be first in the nation - unassuming people who are informed about the issues and who can quote Emerson off the cuff.
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Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark. - Ralph Waldo Emerson On Self Reliance. God bless him.
ReplyDeleteBless him just so far as you can bless transcendentalism, the 19th century's "new age" philosophy. He says some could stuff, however.
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